The semiconductor device industry has a market driven need to reduce the size of devices used in products such as processor chips, mobile telephones, and memory devices such as dynamic random access memories (DRAMs). Currently, the semiconductor industry relies on the ability to reduce or scale the dimensions of its basic devices. This device scaling includes scaling a dielectric layer in devices such as, for example, capacitors and silicon-based metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs), which have primarily been fabricated using silicon dioxide. A thermally grown amorphous SiO2 provides an electrically and thermodynamically stable material, where the interface of the SiO2 layer with underlying silicon provides a high quality interface as well as good electrical isolation properties. However, increased scaling and other requirements in microelectronic devices have made SiO2 less useful because of its band gap and dielectric properties.